


For I Still Have Your Letter

by MeredithBrody



Series: NaNoWriMo [2]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: F/M, Post Series, Romulan War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-31 13:38:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/pseuds/MeredithBrody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years after Enterprise was destroyed during the Romulan War, Erika Hernandez prepares to give the opening speech at the Federation Charter Signing, but first she needs to get some things off her chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For I Still Have Your Letter

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry.  
> The title is from a song called "Good To You" by Marianas Trench.

This moment shouldn't have been as hard as it was. Shouldn't have been, but somehow it still was. Maybe it was the finality of this instant, or maybe it was that she couldn't see herself coming back from this moment. This was the moment that was going to be the end of these years, but not of all the pain that she still experienced. There was something about this that was telling her she shouldn’t do it. But she knew to ignore that little part of her psyche. She needed to do it.

The memorial was taller than she'd imagined it. _Columbia_ had been out at a separate engagement, and she hadn't been able to get back in time. She had managed to stumble across the 15 survivors, none of them she knew. She lost friends, her future. She lost everything the day _Enterprise_ was lost.

It had been five years. She'd managed to deny this moment for five years, but today was an important day. Jonathan's Federation Charter was being signed in the building behind her, and she knew that had been something he'd wanted, something he'd worked for. She had to give his speech, she was the only one left who was respected enough to give this speech. But she didn’t really want to do it. It shouldn’t be her.

She came to a stop and knew this was the spot. This was where she would say her goodbyes. Plead her case to the universe and hoped it answered in some way. Just to tell her that she was doing the right thing. That she was doing what was expected of her.

"Hello Jonathan. God this is stupid." She muttered to herself. Trying to avoid the eyes of those around her, also in dress uniforms, clearly all also on their way to the charter signing. She couldn't go and stand among her peers without saying something to Jon, even if it was only to this arbitrary memorial. She could have done this at home, the home they'd shared, but she hadn't been able to get the words out there either.

So instead she looked up into the sky and closed her eyes, imagining the cosmos she'd seen in front of her, all around her. Imagined she was there and Jonathan could see her in that moment. "You know, for all these years I've tried to go on as if you're still here, as if we just haven't spoken for a while, but my heart isn't as easily distracted as I'd hoped it would be. It reminds me of you, all the time actually. I'll be thinking of something and it will just remind me of something you said, or something we once did. I'm the only one left. Forrest, AG, Sam, Rob, you... you've all gone. I'm the only member of the NX team left, and that's a lonely place, Jonathan." She frowned, taking a deep breath as she did. Sam had been found at his desk the day after the EM pulse had damaged much of Earth’s computer database. About 6 months after _Enterprise_ ’s destruction.

Another breath, in and out, and she slipped her hand into her pocket, feeling it brush against the brittle paper that had been living in there since the day she knew _Enterprise_ was gone. She didn’t need to read it again, she knew the words by heart, and that’s where they now lived. That’s where Jon now lived. It was his home, and where she retreated in the lonely hours of the morning when all she had time to do was lay in bed and think. “I have your letter. The one you gave to me the day war was declared and made me promise I wouldn’t read unless you weren’t coming home. I’ve read it over, and over, and over, but it still doesn’t give me any comfort. Especially as we both knew we felt the same. We wasted so long, gave up so much ground. Why were we always so afraid what the others thought? Why didn’t we just accept that we loved one another and that that was enough?” She trailed off again. Feeling angry at herself for bringing these feelings up in the moment when they should have been the last things on her mind.

“I loved you. I love you. I don’t know which is the right tense. Probably present, because I haven’t stopped loving you just because you can’t return the feeling any longer. I will never stop loving you, if that helps. I never have, and I don’t think another year, or five, or ten will change that.” She had to stop, drop her head to her chest and take a long breath to give herself a moment. To stop herself from getting too far away from the real reason she was here, the real reason she was stood in this place before she gave the most important speech she would ever give. A speech that, by rights, Jonathan should be giving. This should be his moment of glory, not hers.

“In a few hours, I’ll be telling the representatives of twenty worlds that everything Starfleet has done out there was worth it. That we found the friends we were looking for. But I keep focusing on the people I lost personally. You and Trip. Veronica, Karl and Sidra. People who mattered to me. How do I tell anyone that this was all worth it when I’m without the people who should be sharing this day with me?” The completely rhetorical question had set her off. How was any of this fair. How was this moment fair on any of them. Starfleet had been left broken and bleeding by the War. Maybe they needed the allies, but they didn’t need the flag Captain telling everyone that the War had been worth it. Because no war was ever worth the peace that followed, because the only people left were as damaged and alone as she was.

“I’ll be reading out a part of your letter. The part where you mentioned that this would one day happen. Where you told me that if our generation wasn’t the ones going to be exploring, then the next generation would be. I hope you were right. I’ve never thought that you would be, but I hope you are. Maybe the war changed me in ways I don’t even realise. I used to be the optimist, remember that.” She laughed to herself, a laugh full of anger and mirth. All she could do was try to shake it off. Try to remember that once upon a time this had been what they’d both wanted. They’d wanted to do it together, though. Doing it alone was just reminding her that he wasn’t there to share in it, and that he should have been.

Every breath felt like it was a sharp pain between her ribs, and she realised that the tears were streaming down her cheeks, soaking the collar of her uniform, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking the questions. Why it had been him, not her. Why she had been left so separate from her colleagues. Those with whom she had served as contemporaries with long left behind her. She had always tried to ignore the isolation, the loneliness, but in this moment it was too hard to ignore. She was sure that all those passing her could hear every word of anger and every question of god that she was shouting, but she needed to get it out. She’d held it in for too long.

Her breathing finally began to even out, and she felt more like she could take control of herself again. Maybe now she could finish what she had come here meaning to say and then she could go and lie to the politicians and the diplomats, put a bright shine on the years that were the Earth-Romulan War, and make everyone feel shiny about what they were doing. But she would definitely be mentioning the names of those who had been lost along the way.

“This speech is for you, Jon. Everything I’ve done for the last 21 years and two months has been for you. Everything I do from this moment on will still be for you. I hope you can be proud of me.” She said, again imagining the stars around her, and taking a few more breaths until she was steady, until she knew she would be able to step away from this place and not fall straight to the ground. Her hand slid back into her pocket, settling again on the letter. She still had the letter, and she would always keep it.


End file.
